Tag: Google for Work

We’ve written a series of articles on how frevvo + Google Apps (Sheets, Drive, Maps) can work together to solve business problems. frevvo includes a built-in submission repository that saves all your form and workflow submissions. You can view this data, filter it, and export it using the Submissions Views available in Live Forms. But, you can also combine frevvo + Google Sheets and leverage some sophisticated capabilities that are part of Google Sheets (charts, queries, filters etc.) for powerful data analysis on your submission data.

Here’s an example form that you can try. It’s a simple one with a few fields. A survey form for participants in the 2014 World Cup Soccer tournament. The form adds your submission data to this Google Sheet and shows it. When you submit it, you’ll see your submission in the last row.

The spreadsheet also contains two other Tabs: Geo Location and Pie Chart. The Geo Location Tab runs a query on the raw submission data and groups submissions by country. The Sheets Query language is very general and allows SQL-like queries. Once we have the data by country in a nice tabular format, we can generate a nice chart that plots submissions by country on a world map. Easy as pie.

The Pie Chart Tab, as you might expect, contains a pie chart. It contains a very similar query except that it sums pledge amounts by country and by position. Once again, we have the required data in a table and can easily generate pie charts to report on the data.

In this way, you can easily use frevvo’s Google Connector to save your submissions to Google Sheets. Then, you can use a whole host of built-in features in Google Sheets to analyze your submissions.

Interested in using frevvo with Google Apps? Contact us to learn how you can automate your approval workflows, integrate with Google Apps to manage your documents and use some of Sheets capabilities for advanced reporting.

Customers are combining frevvo + Google Apps in many ways to solve real business problems, and to improve productivity and efficiency. We recently described “05 ways you can benefit from combining frevvo with Google Apps in your organization TODAY” in this recent e-Book. We’ve also created a short (3 min) video that describes the benefits of combining the two.

From dynamic pick lists to using Google Drive as a content repository to approval workflows, the combination just makes completing routine, day-to-day business tasks easier and faster.

It’s 2016! There’s simply no excuse for outdated, manual systems that cause delays, result in unhappy employees and wasted time and money. Visit our website to and see how customers are using frevvo today to improve efficiency and productivity.

In previous articles, we’ve described the many ways you can combine frevvo + Google Apps to solve real business problems, improve productivity and efficiency and allow employees to focus on customers, students and patients instead of being bogged down in paperwork.

Download this new e-Book that describes “05 ways you can benefit from combining frevvo with Google Apps in your organization TODAY”.

From dynamic pick lists to using Google Drive as a content repository to approval workflows, the combination just makes completing routine, day-to-day business tasks easier and faster.

It’s 2016! There’s simply no excuse for outdated, manual systems that cause delays, result in unhappy employees and wasted time and money.

Several customers are combining frevvo + Google Apps in interesting and useful ways to solve real business problems. From electronic signatures to dynamic pick lists to using Google Drive as a content repository to approval workflows, the combination just makes completing routine, day-to-day business tasks easier.

Google as the Identity Provider

Follow the steps below. Screens are shown in the images below.

Login to your Google domain as an admin, go to the admin portal and click through to Apps > SAML Apps. If you have any existing SAML apps, you’ll see them here. Click the big PLUS (+) sign at bottom right to add a new one. A wizard will appear.

In Step 1, click the “Setup My Own Custom App” link at the bottom of the screen.

In Step 2, choose Option 2 and Download the IDP metadata file.

In Step 3, you can provide a name for your application, a description and a logo.

In Step 4, you must enter the Service Provider (frevvo) details. For ACS URL, type https://app.frevvo.com:443/frevvo/web/saml/SSO/alias/{tenant}. For Entity Id, type https://app.frevvo.com:443/frevvo/web/alias/{tenant}. In both cases, replace {tenant} with your cloud tenant. For example, https://app.frevvo.com:443/frevvo/web/saml/SSO/alias/ashish-saml.com. Leave the built-in Name Id attribute configuration alone.

Your new SAML App will be displayed. Click the three dots at right and turn ON SSO. You can choose to turn it ON for everyone in your domain or for specific sub-domains.

1. Setup Custom App

2. Download IDP metadata

3. Basic Information

4. frevvo Details

5. Custom Attribute

6. Setup Complete

7. Turn ON SSO.

Create users in Google

At this point, you’ll need to create your users in Google or move existing users into the appropriate sub-organization if you are limiting access to your SAML app in Google. You won’t have to create new users or move existing users if you enabled the SAML app for everyone in your Google domain.

However, you’ll need a user in your Google domain to serve as the tenant administrator. Either, create a new one or choose an existing one (there’s nothing to do as long as you choose someone).

Create users in frevvo

You need to ensure that the user you chose/created as the tenant admin exists in frevvo. Once we switch over to SAML, all authentication will use Google Apps credentials and you won’t be able to login using your current tenant admin or other users. We’ll use CSV upload. The file syntax looks like this:

The fields are your Google login (e.g. prajakta.deshmukh@frevvo.com), your frevvo tenant id (e.g. ashish-saml.com), any password (it is not used), the first name, last name and email address. In the roles field, use the roles indicated above.

Login as the current tenant admin user.

Click on Manage Users.

Click on Download CSV users file.

Edit the file to setup at least one Google User (the one you chose/created as the tenant admin).

Click on CSV Upload (the Excel looking icon) and upload the file to create this user.

frevvo as the Service Provider

Now, we need to setup frevvo. Follow the steps below (also shown in the image below):

Generate the SP metadata file from frevvo. Visit the URL: https://app.frevvo.com:443/frevvo/web/saml/metadata/alias/{tenant} in your browser. Replace {tenant} with your cloud tenant. Right click to View Page Source and save as an XML file.

In the Security Manager section, click the Change button, choose SAML in the drop down that appears and click Ok. NOTE: Free Trial accounts do not show the Change button. If the Change button is not visible in your tenant, please contact customer support.

The SAML configuration section will appear. In the Service Provider section, we must paste the SP metadata file we generated in Step 1 above. Unfortunately, the file contains an XML prolog (highlighted in the image below) which must be removed. Paste the contents of this SP metadata file without the prolog into the Service Provider text area of the configuration form.

In the Identity Provider section, paste the IDP metadata file we generated and saved in the Google setup above. Once again, the file contains an XML prolog. Paste the contents of this IDP metadata file without the prolog into the Identity Provider text area of the configuration form.

Check Authentication Only. This means SAML will authenticate the user but not retrieve any of the attributes. Users are not automatically discovered upon first login. Therefore, you must create users & roles using CSV upload.

If you do not wish to select the Authentication Only option, you’ll need to map other attributes in Google first before you can assign them in Frevvo. First Name, Last Name, and Email should be pretty straight forward since these attributes are surfaced by the Google SAML IdP app. The other attributes may be more difficult.

With the Authentication Only option, attribute mapping only includes one attribute, the User Id. Since we mapped the email address to the User Id attribute in Google while setting up the SAML app, we can simply map the frevvo attribute to User Id in the configuration form.

Login to Google as the Google user you chose/created as the tenant admin.

You will be redirected to frevvo to the Manage Tenant screen.

The user id displayed in frevvo at the top will look like {user}@{domain}@{tenant} which is a bit confusing but is purely cosmetic.

1. Tenant Login URL

2. Google Apps Credentials

3. Manage Tenant

Load other users in frevvo

Before your other Google users can login to frevvo using their Google Apps credentials, they must first be created in frevvo. You can download users from Google Apps as a CSV file (uncheck the create a Google Sheet option), modify it to follow frevvo’s syntax as above and upload it. You can also login as the tenant admin Google user and create users and roles using the UI.

Once the user exists in frevvo, he/she can login using Google credentials and the system will behave as expected according to the roles assigned to the user.

Organizations use frevvo to digitize day-to-day approval workflows in the Cloud such as expense reports, purchase requisitions and employee on-boarding. These workflows generate documents that must be securely stored and managed somewhere – typically some sort of ECM (Enterprise Content Management) system.

Organizations (including frevvo Inc.) use Google Drive as a Cloud-based system to store and manage enterprise content and to collaborate on that content including both unstructured content such as videos, images, spreadsheets, & presentations and structured content such as invoices, sales orders, & expense reports.

The fit is obvious and natural. If your organization uses Google Apps, you can combine frevvo + Google Apps to solve real business problems, improve productivity and efficiency and allow employees to focus on customers, students and patients instead of being bogged down in paperwork.

From electronic signatures to dynamic pick lists to using Google Drive as a content repository to approval workflows, the combination just makes completing routine, day-to-day business tasks easier.

It’s 2016! There’s simply no excuse for outdated, manual systems that cause delays, result in unhappy employees and wasted time and money.

frevvo already has pre-built forms and workflows that can be customized in next to no time and deployed online. They can all be signed online, routed to the proper person electronically, used on mobile devices, delivered in multiple languages, generate PDFs, work with Google Apps and a whole host of advanced capabilities. There’s no need to deal with printing PDFs for signatures, correcting Excel-based time sheets, or tracking down approvals in email.

Today, we’ll put it all together and create a Leave Approval workflow. It has several steps.

1. Employee Requests Leave

Leave Request form

First, the employee logs in to the system (either directly to frevvo or integrated with Active Directory or other LDAP or SAML) and requests leave by filling out a form. This form reads Annual and Sick days from this Google Sheet for the currently logged in employee, shows them in the pick list labels and sets up the pick list options so that the employee can only select a valid # of days. The employee then signs the request digitally. This locks the section from being further edited. Finally, the employee sends the request to his/her manager for approval.

2. Manager Approval

Manager Approval (Smartphone)

The workflow then routes the request to that employee’s manager for approval. Since frevvo knows who the employee is, it can route to the specific person that needs to approve. The manager will get a notification email with a link to the leave request. He/she can then access the leave approval via the built-in task list and approve the request. If there are questions/concerns, the manager can reject it back to the employee for more information.

3. HR Department Processing

Finally, the workflow routes to the HR department for processing. Once HR has completed processing, the HR manager can click Finish and the workflow completes.

4. Update Google Sheets & Save to Google Drive

Once the workflow completes, the Google Sheet is automatically updated to reflect the changes in available days. The system will automatically subtract the number of approved days from the number that were originally available so that the data in the Sheet is always up-to-date.

PDF uploaded to Google Drive

The PDF Leave Approval document is also uploaded to Google Drive. The workflow is configured so that frevvo’s Google Connector will create a subfolder with the employee’s first and last names and the leave start date and upload the PDF of the approval to that subfolder so that it’s very easy to find at a later date.

5. Notify the Employee

Finally, the employee who originally requested the leave is also notified via email that the leave was approved and the PDF document is attached to the email. This way, the employee can save the documents for his/her records.

Does your organization use Google Apps? Are you interested in digitizing your day-to-day approval workflows and forms integrated with Google Apps? Visit our website to view examples, watch videos, sign up for a free 30-day trial or contact us for more information.